


Sleight of Hand and Twist of Fate

by shihadchick



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Casual Sex, Friends With Benefits, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Chronological, brojobs, extremely niche use of fancy stats, implied pining, the numbers don't lie:the remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 06:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17381846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: Zach gets around. There's pluses and minuses to that.





	Sleight of Hand and Twist of Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta! 
> 
> And thanks-pologies to Micah, for this outrageously literal interpretation of data viz sourced from his site.
> 
> Note: tipsy sex is referenced in a flashback; it's hazy but both parties consented and were untroubled by the experience.

* * *

 30th

"If you're not first, you're last."

* * *

The Blue Jackets powerplay is only not dead last in the league because the Montreal Canadiens (and doesn't Zach have some fond memories of them) are even more astonishingly bad and unlucky on the man advantage than they are.

It's not exactly much consolation.

Zach's sick of the articles and the radio shows and the blogs and every other fucking thing talking about it the same way the rest of the team is.

It's not like they don't _know_.

The only thing they don't know is how to actually fix things. Every time it seems like something's working, something else falls off or falls over. If Zach wasn't determined not to give into superstitious bullshit he really might wonder about a curse.

Nuti's been making dark proclamations about how if this goes on any longer they're gonna need to find that Penguins card that was maybe buried under the arena and dig it up; Zach just figures they could sneak something of theirs into the Pens' arena and it'd even out. But what does he know, he's not the guy who believes in curses.

* * *

 5th

"Focus on defending, get back to winning battles and winning pucks in the D-zone."

* * *

Zach's going to say all the right things to Portzy and Bobby Mac and Tom and, well, any other journalist in earshot. He knows what to say, how he's supposed to act. The guys joke that he only has one expression; it's self-defense that dug in deep years and years ago and he hasn't seen any point in changing that when it's working out.

It doesn't mean he's not _pissed as hell_ about being demoted to the third pair.

Fifth on the depth chart.

And it's not like he's mad at Murr or Jonesy or Nuti or Savvy.

He's mad at himself, and maybe a little at Torts, but in the kind of way that Zach also knows Torts wants him to be. They understand each other well enough.

It doesn't make it any easier to take when his ice time drops and it feels like his ability to read the play takes a nosedive with it.

Maybe that's what makes him want to push back, lets him take the pass Wenny sends right onto his tape.

It's the sort of pass that doesn't involve a puck, if Zach's being coy about it.

But Wenny shoots him a look, and raises one of his unfairly perfect eyebrows and jerks his shoulder towards the door, and Zach thinks: why not.

And it's not like it was bad. Zach rolls out of bed after in a perfectly decent mood, shoves his feet back into his sneakers without bothering with socks, helps himself to a Gatorade out of Wenny's fridge, and heads home whistling.

They'd had perfectly adequate, unspectacular sex on Wenny's nice cotton sheets; just two buddies exchanging handjobs, nothing Zach hasn't done more times than he can count. It had been nice. Served the purpose. _Average_.

"No offense," Zach had said, well aware his tone might be providing the exact opposite but trusting Wenny to know him well enough to ignore that. "But I think this might be a one and done, eh?"

Wenny nodded at him, cracked a grin, shrugged.

"You're not wrong. Well, maybe if we get desperate. Later, Z."

Zach's pretty sure guys who look like Wenny never actually have to get all that desperate, but he doesn't mind the distraction, and it feels like he's trending in the right direction again when they get on the ice the next day.

He gets shifts with Jonesy and he gets a goal off a sweet bounce right in front of the blue paint, and it's good. Scoring is scoring, and that's what Zach's on the ice to do.

* * *

 1st

"And after 52 years of waiting, see it! Believe it! The Lake Eerie Monsters are Calder Cup Champions!"

* * *

Zach hooked up with Sonny precisely once.

He's pretty sure it was good; it would have to have been, Sonny's good with his hands and good with his mouth, and Zach sure as hell woke up feeling good, other than the hangover.

And Zach's never seen a championship win yet that didn't end with at least half the team hungover, so that had felt reassuringly normal even if the full scope of it all was a little harder to grasp in the immediate dehydrated and adrenaline-fuelled aftermath.

He had bruises from the giant celebration pile-on up against the glass, from throwing himself bodily at whichever of his teammates came close enough, and then he had a whole lot more bruises that logically had to fit somewhere on the timeline between all of the champagne and partying and the part where he woke up with Sonny passed out and snoring face down on Zach's pillow.

Even the fact they were both naked might not have meant anything, but Zach had some hazy, fond memories of burying his face in Sonny's curls and sticking a hand down his pants. He didn't exactly need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out they'd ditched out on the team party at some point and had a private party of their own.

Zach had no regrets, really. They'd won, they'd proven they were the best in the league, and Zach had spent half the evening drenched in champagne and sweat even before he and Sonny had gotten it wet, there were literally no downsides except for some additional laundry.

And Zach's always had a weakness for boys with curls.

* * *

 3rd

"We give them the games we play"

* * *

Zach gets sent out on a school visit near the beginning of the season, helping boost the Jackets' Power Play Challenge and giving the kids something to be excited about.

Despite the full run down he gets from the people who run the program day to day, Zach's not totally sure what's appropriate to say to third graders other than "try real hard and do your homework", which is probably going to sound about as boring and uncool as it did when he'd been the kid sitting on the mat looking up at a real life hockey player and knowing all the way down to his bones that one day it was gonna be him.

He had, admittedly, been thinking a lot more about being the guy who was scoring goals and taking the puck away from opposing forwards with a flick of his wrist, somewhere between Datsyuk and Lidstrom, but standing in front of a classroom and telling them it was important to stay active probably still counted somewhere on that spectrum.

He's not sure how well he's selling it, but luckily, he doesn't have to try hard a whole lot, because Stinger's also along on the visit and Stinger is way more popular with the kids.

It probably helps to be bright green and fuzzy, but Zach'll take the assists wherever he can get them, so he fist bumps Stinger, and then they do some stick-handling drills, and Zach tries to let Stinger win, he really does, but he can't quite dial it back enough to be convincing.

And then the kids crowd around and they try to teach Stinger how to floss and Zach actually gets a stomach ache from laughing so hard.

It's a pretty good day, actually.

* * *

31st

"Are you looking for this? Because, uh, it completes your outfit."

* * *

A bunch of them wind up in the hot tub after the Hallowe'en party.

It's Zach and Seth and the PB&J line, and Savvy as the designated Actual Adult, or at least the one who tells the rest of them not to take any glass bottles in there for fuckssake.

Seth claims he's overheated and bails pretty quick, and Luc trails after him a minute or so later, dripping all over the floor and cheerfully skidding over to where they'd dumped a pile of towels.

No one actually brought bathing suits—that would've involved a lot more forethought, and this is definitely a three-to-five-drinks-later type of idea—so it's been skinny-dipping since the moment Josh pointed out the hot tub was there and they should use it. A couple of guys turned out to not be wearing a whole lot under their costumes, which Zach didn't quite anticipate, but it makes for good chirping material.

And what's a little nudity between teammates, considering they're all butt-naked in the same room multiple times a day anyway?

"You know what would make this perfect?" Josh says, stretching out and kicking Zach. The tub really isn't big enough for six hockey players, and even four is still a stretch. There were some definite overflow issues when they'd all first gotten in.

"Bottle service?" Savvy suggests, and Josh flips him off and keeps talking.

"Big screen TV?" Zach suggests. He's picking up what Josh is putting down.

"With a horror movie marathon or something," Josh says. "It'd be, you know. Seasonally appropriate."

"Sick," Zach agrees, and kicks Josh right back. He's warm and loose and everything feels good, it's been a good night.

"I will go to see what Sergei is doing," Panarin says eventually, sweaty and pink, hair sticking to his face. "Before I melt like Z."

Zach flips him off lazily; he's just fine, thanks.

"Also so you can can kick Andy instead of me," Panarin adds, and Zach tries to sit up in a hurry, slides forward a little and nearly dunks himself in the process.

Josh and Savvy laugh themselves stupid, of course, but Panarin just clambers out of the tub with a shit-eating grin on his face. And Zach's just off-balance enough to let himself watch; Panarin isn't big, is probably the smallest guy on the team after Cam, but—he puts in the hours working out, and you can tell. He looks good, Zach thinks, in the uncomplicated way you kind of think about people sometimes, imagining what it'd be like. Pretty good, Zach thinks, if he was into that, which Zach also does _not_ think Artemi is. But sometimes you just can't help but notice shit, and so sue him, sometimes Zach looks.

Except this time he gets caught.

Zach turns his head as the sliding door clicks shut behind Panarin and sees Josh looking right at him, a thoughtful look on his face that promises some kind of comment later.

Zach raises an eyebrow at him, and slouches a little when that doesn't draw an immediate response.

"C'mon man, it's like midnight," Andy says a little while later, when it's clear that whatever conversation they'd managed to have before then has dried up. "We're gonna turn into prunes."

Zach follows him out of the tub without complaint, Savvy right behind them as they sort out the costume pieces they'd abandoned on the floor and try to dry off enough that their clothing isn't going to stick to them. Zach wants to go home, shower, and then crawl right into bed without having to make any of the intervening steps, but since no one's invented teleportation yet it means he has to get dressed enough to look normal in a Lyft.

He doesn't dare look at Josh, with whom he would usually be sharing the Lyft or the cab or what the fuck ever.

Josh still doesn't say anything.

* * *

 2nd

"So we've got to learn from our mistakes and not do it again"

* * *

Objectively speaking, Zach is pretty bad at Fortnite.

At least, bad by his standards, which means he can hang in there but not exactly excel. It's fun, and it's more fun playing with his boys; Auston when their days off coincide and a few of the other guys from back in Michigan as well. Luc lights up when he finds out Zach plays too, so the two of them buddy up and play more often than not, and it turns into a thing they do in warmups as well.

Luc is maybe a little worse than Zach. They're both about as shitty at aiming—Luc blames the PlayStation controller but Zach's on the X-Box and doesn't have a whole lot of sympathy. Zach usually racks up more kills, which is good for bragging rights, but Luc's possessed of a uncanny ability to wind up dropping inside the circle more often than not, so Zach'll take that buff to his luck any day.

Most of the time they don't do much better than second place, but it's fun all the same.

Luc's also the first guy in Columbus that Zach goes back for seconds with.

It doesn't happen till they're on their streak near the end of Luc's rookie season, everyone keyed up and tense and pretending like they don't have two eyes glued to the standings every spare minute. Luc starts getting close to Zach's record, and fuck, Zach just wants the wins, he's not going to get wound up over that, but Luc looks a little like he wants to apologize anyway.

"Make it up to me later," Zach says, with a shrug that he thinks will adequately suggest that Luc can like, buy him a drink when they're in Canada, or can cover lunch some day or something like that.

Luc covers Zach's knee with one big hand and raises an eyebrow at him, testing.

Zach swallows hard.

"I mean, I'm not gonna say no," he says, and he doesn't, and so they do.

It's—

It's certainly not bad.

Luc's good with his mouth and even better with his hands, and Zach's happy to lie there afterward with him feeling a little wrecked and sore in all the good ways. He'd got Luc back, because Zach has manners and he wasn't going to let a bro down, but all in all that's what it had felt like, after all. Just guys helping each other out.

Zach's always good for a revive.

So they just carry on like nothing's changed for a few weeks after that, and nothing does, and then Luc gets a hatty up in Calgary so obviously Zach's gotta help him mark the occasion.

He leaves a string of marks along Luc's collarbone, echoes the line of his jersey and makes him arch up and come all over both of them in about thirty seconds flat, panting hard. The elevation's killer, it really is.

Zach lets him catch his breath and then Luc returns the favor anyway, even though Zach says he's cool if he's not feeling it.

It was good, he thinks later, crawling back into his own bed, and kind of missing when he still had a road roomie, now that Josh's on his second contract. Good but it's not like it was setting Zach's soul on fire, now the whole boning-for-the-first-time sheen has dulled off of it.

Reassuringly, Luc seems to feel much the same, and they kind of leave it there without having to actually talk about it.

They beat Auston and his boys next time they're all online at the same time too, so Zach's taking the overall win for sure there. Never let it be said he doesn't have priorities.

* * *

 4th

"If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."

* * *

And as for Josh—

Josh is fun.

Zach misses living with him even if he's kind of unapologetically a slob, and he misses hanging out on the couch when he feels sociable and chilling out in his room when he doesn't, secure in the knowledge that if he wants company, then Josh's pretty much right there.

He even misses Josh trying to fuck up his hair—with varying degrees of stealth and even more varying degrees of success—even though it's not like Zach's hair does much, not like Josh's, which practically stands on end and then frames his face like he's some kind of action figure or something.

Zach made the mistake of saying as much precisely once, and that just prompted Josh to strike a pose and then start trying to do some kind of GI Joe thing, which would probably have worked better if either of them could remember anything from those movies other than how bad the prosthetics they put the guy from Inception in were.

So what Zach's saying is that he—

Well, he does like living alone, mostly, but even going into his third season, it's harder than he expected to find a balance that still works for him.

He went from living at home to with billets, to sharing a dorm room with Dylan, to sharing an apartment with Josh. And now it's just him, and he doesn't want to say he's lonely, but—

"Oh my god dude, just, like, go on a bro-date with him or whatever," Auston says, and they're on voice chat only but Zach can still hear the eye-roll in his voice.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Zach says stiffly, and Auston just laughs at him, which is—probably fair, really.

It's not like Zach's moping; he's plenty busy, but between starting off the season slow and still feeling like he's trying to get things going again after his shoulder surgery, he doesn't really have time to dwell on it.

There's just always something else to do, or work on; rehab exercises or team briefs or tape sessions, community engagement and everything else. Zach feels a little hollow, still, after a full season living by himself, but he doesn't let himself really feel it until he gets rid of some of the noise, puts up a respectable point streak and feels like he's back to where he was, where he should be.

"Movie night?" Josh asks, after practice one day, and Zach hardly hesitates before agreeing.

He still has a key, so he lets himself in, and Josh's just sprawled out on the couch they'd bought together, half asleep, and it's so familiar that Zach stops dead in his tracks, chest twisting.

Josh's hair is flat on one side from his impromptu nap, and Zach puts the six-pack he'd brought over down on the kitchen table a little harder than he'd intended.

The glass clattering gets Josh's attention, but he doesn't sit up. Just opens his eyes properly, tips his head back to stare over the back of the couch at Zach, quiet, keen eyes missing nothing. Josh plays dumb a lot, but Zach knows there's a lot more there than just his size and his willingness to use it, and he's never forgotten that.

Zach likes camouflage, likes to use whatever strategic advantages he has, and he's worked hard enough that he has even more of those than he'd have with pure native skill alone.

Josh hides in plain sight and smokes you when you least expect it.

So in a way, Zach should have expected it when he dropped onto the couch beside him, and Josh just slung a heavy arm around his neck and pulled him into a half-hug.

"Hi?" Zach says, letting the corner of his mouth turn up, crooked.

The remote is on the other side of the couch by Josh's knee, and Zach expects him to reach for it, didn't even ask what they were going to be watching, although at least their taste is usually the same.

"So," Josh says, "You and PLD, eh?"

"Yeah, nope," Zach says. "Not talking about that."

"Cos you don't wanna talk about it, or cos it's not happening?"

"Both?" Zach tries. "It was, you know. It was fine. But it's not a thing."

"How long are you gonna keep doing this, Z?"

"Uh, what?" Zach says. He genuinely doesn't know what Josh means.

Josh sighs.

"Your cunning plan where you never actually ask for what you really want."

"You know what I want?" Zach says, and then he freezes, and Josh's hand tightens on the back of his neck, a tiny tell, but one that Zach doesn't miss all the same.

Shit, he just—walked right into that. Josh set him up and Zach was so busy not admitting to anything on his mind that he came right out with the one thing he doesn't let himself think about the rest of the time.

And Josh knows. Josh _knows_ , and he's not backing off, not doing anything but sitting there and waiting for Zach to get brave enough to ask.

"Andy," Zach says, helpless. "I don't—I mean." He flounders some more, but Josh's waiting him out, letting him run the line all the way out. Zach's going to tie himself in knots if he keeps talking, and yet he can't stop. "I don't want to fuck this up. You're one of my best friends."

"Am I?" Josh asks. "Because I've seen you with your friends, Z, and you've never acted like that with me."

He doesn't say: you've never kissed me. Never jerked me off. Never rolled laughing into bed and fucked around for hours, just enjoying each other.

He doesn't need to say it, it's all there in the silence between them, the clamor of Zach's conscience.

"I can't touch you like that," Zach admits, barely above a whisper.

The frustration he's felt all along is vivid in Josh's eyes when Zach finally looks up at him again, almost palpable. "Why not?"

"Because I don't know how I'd stop, after," Zach blurts out, bites his lip, hard. He hadn't meant to say that. He hadn't even been sure enough until the words came out of his mouth that there was a single, coherent reason he kept denying himself every subtle invitation that Josh had ever dangled for him. But it had the distinctive ring of truth, settling like a lead weight into his stomach.

Josh laughs, short and sharp, and choked off.

"Easy solution, Zach."

"Oh yeah, what?"

Josh twists to face him directly, fierce and undeterred. " _Then don't stop_."

Zach just stares at him for a couple of seconds, feels like he's in slow motion, the words trickling through his ears and sinking into his brain, echoing in the back of his head.

"Josh—" Zach says, and makes the decision then.

It's not so much throwing caution to the wind as it is re-evaluating the situation and feeling the rightness in his gut, knowing that if there's a time and place for this, it's Here and Now. And that sometimes you just have to lay yourself out to block the shot, and trust that it's going to go exactly where you expect.

Zach twists his hand into the collar of Josh's t-shirt and yanks him closer, mashing their lips together into an imperfect kiss, rough and desperate, unpracticed.

He groans as they break apart at last, half an inch between them, and Zach gulps in a deep breath and dives right back in, hands scrabbling around trying to get a better grip on Josh and huffing out a breathless laugh as he catches skin as well as cloth the first time, as Josh jerks against him and makes a muffled groan into Zach's mouth.

"Sorry," he breathes, but Josh just says, " _Zach_ ," and gets his fingers into Zach's hair, holding him in place, pressure just the right side of pain.

"You really want to do this?" Zach's compelled to ask, a while later, when they've wound up in Josh's bedroom instead, and left most of their clothing on the floor. When Zach makes his mind up, he commits.

But he needs to make sure that Josh is right there with him.

"Kinda think we already did it, Z," Josh says, come-dumb and lazy, smirking at him over the pillow they're sharing.

Zach elbows him in the ribs, and Josh doesn't even budge.

"This as a—a lifestyle choice, or whatever," he clarifies.

Josh gives him a dirty look. "You know, that's the worst way anyone's ever asked me to be their boyfriend. I'm just saying."

Zach gives him the look right back, and Josh has the grace to look mildly abashed.

" _Josh._ "

"I'm saying yes," Josh protests. "Just, maybe work on your delivery."

"Fuck off," Zach says, rolling over to play big spoon, his eyes closing and lips brushing the curve of Josh's biceps. "You're into my delivery."

"Guess I can't argue there," Josh says. "Let's make up a better story to tell people later, though. Because I don't think 'he dicked me down and then argued with me about if we were dating' is going to sound good."

"I dunno," Zach says, around a yawn that makes his jaw crack, "I think there's a solid chance anyone you say that to isn't gonna have any follow up questions."

Josh snorts, but Zach can feel him relaxing, too, his body taking the cue of being warm and naked and in bed to start sliding inevitably towards sleep as well. "There is a certain appeal there," he agrees. "Okay, sure. Go forth and tell the world, uh, whatever you're comfortable with. But let's fuckin' nap now."

"You got it," Zach says, and he's pretty sure Josh can hear the grin he's wearing in his tone, too.

He can feel sleep crowding up against the edges of his mind, and now that they've got, well, as much settled as Zach thinks they possibly could, this early on, well. They've earned the fuck out of this nap, and Zach's going to enjoy every minute of it.

~End~

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes are, variously: unattributed, Zach Werenski, Tony Brown, 3EB's Semi-Charmed Life, Halloween (1978), Oliver Bjorkstrand, Blackadder Goes Forth. Philosophers all, obvs.
> 
> And now that this is no longer anon, I can add that the data driving this was Zach's WOWY chart, which at the time of writing can be read as:
> 
> Wenny: dead on average   
> Panarin: good   
> Luc: dull but good   
> Sonny: insufficient data   
> Josh: fun
> 
> ...and the title is of course from U2 because more puns always.


End file.
